The use of portable digital devices has already widespread and appears to gain further popularity in the future. The portable digital devices include portable computers, cellular phones, personal handyphone systems (PHS), and personal digital assistances (PDA) such as a Palm™. The portable digital devices are used to keep information such as schedules, addresses, phone numbers as well as to communicate through voice and data. With the recent explosion of the Internet, the portable digital devices are capable of accessing e-mail as well as web sites. For example, in Japan, Nippon Telephone and Telegram (NTT) offers the i-mode™ which allows the portable digital devices such as cell phones to access the web sites for information, on-line shopping, ticket reservations as well as fund transfers.
Despite the above described convenient services, the portable digital devices generally suffer some shortcomings. One of them is a lack of printing capabilities. In fact, the portable digital devices fail to support any print driver and are not equipped with a printer connector. The lack of a print capability is further complicated by a large amount of information to be displayed at certain web sites and a small display on the portable digital devices. The small display cannot show a large amount of information at a time, and a user is not able to understand the information in an efficient manner. The small displays also cannot show graphical information at a reasonably high resolution. For example, a user cannot read a detailed map on a small display on the portable digital device. Furthermore, the portable digital device does not allow the user to open a certain attached file in e-mail. Because of these reasons, it appears necessary to print accessed information so that the user fully and efficiently utilizes the accessed information.
Instead of carrying a printer to print the information accessed through a portable digital device, it is desirable to print the information using one of a plurality of printer stations placed at predetermined or remote locations. In other words, as public phones are widely available for use for a fee, it is desired that public printers should be also widely available.